If I were to start a tirade on what is wrong with modern films it would run ‘’straight into Amos and Andy,” as Jack Benny used to say. So, I will gracefully hint rather than start a topic I can’t stop. Those beautiful, glamorous, charming, absolutely idiotic studio musicals they churned out by the millions in the days of Rudy Valle and Al Jolson have gone the way of those late greats – blank stares and non-recognition. Ah, yes, those musicals of sailors and dancers and child stars and 24 hour leave and Fred and Ginger whirling gracefully off into the blue azure, are forgotten. Remembered only when the shadows cast by the slowly creaking rocking chair and the withered shawl draped by the timeless burning embers are set in memory back a million years – 1944. Farewell, memories of talent and vitality, of….if you find this as sickening as I do you’ll be glad to learn I’m being sarcastic. All said before is pure rubbish. I am fourteen years old, for cryin’ out loud! And I love the forties, fifties, ect., as much as any eighty-year-old you care to name. And, in that grand old year of 1944 a man named Frank Sinatra made a film called ”Step Lively.” This is an adorable movie. Following the simple logic that to be reading a review on Frank Sinatra you must have some sort of taste, I’m sure you”ll agree. I saw the Marx Bros. ”Room Service,” on which, of course, this is based, and two scenes with Harpo are absolutely irreplacable. And it would be insane to assume that George Murphey could top Groucho Marx, or Gloria DeHaven and Anne Jeffreys push Lucille Ball and Ann Miller out of the running. But this movie is actually quite hilarious. I’d never seen Walter Slezak before, but if it were not for a gentleman to be discussed later he would steal the picture. His inane chatter brings forth occasional bursts of comedic brilliance, if you’ll pardon a lofty sentence. Eugene Pallette is plump and gruff and, as always, charmingly so. Gloria DeHaven’s rich voice is pleasant, and she’s polished and capable. George Murphy is actually surprisingly good here. He is the main reason for the film’s frantic pace, which is what makes the whole thing work. He can hoof, croon unremarkably, be very funny, even act in the loosest of terms, and emerges likeably and the main core of why the fringes hang on reasonably without heading into the insane. The songs are, if not brilliant, either witty or quite beautiful, the routines are fairly entertaining and clever. But all of this would be worth second to nothing if it were not for the slight young man who emerges into view about fifteen minutes through the proceedings. I refer, of course, to none other than the Chairman of the Board, The Entertainer of the Twentieth Century, Ol’ Blue Eyes, The Sultan of Swoon, The ”Most Fascinating Man in the World”…..Dick Haymes. Excuse me, Frank Sinatra. ”Step Lively” was Sinatra’s fifth film, and the first in which he plays a character with a name other than Frank Sinatra. Well, what’s there to say about Sinatra? His voice in 1944 was, in my opinion, at the most breathtakingly beautiful it ever got.( Not saying it was at it’s best, of course, you’d have to name 1956 for that.) If you hate Frank Sinatra, watch the movie. Even I tend to get so caught up in the swirl of tabloids and Kitty Kelly and Mobsters and the Wrong Door Raid and all that tiresome rot about Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, that I forget there once was a skinny kid from Hoboken with no scandals, a girl-next-door wife, two cute children, and the nation-wide furor that erupted over his first screen kiss. Really! Swoonatra is absolutely adorable. No other word for it. He strolls in the film as thin as a piece of paper and looking about twelve-years-old, and immediately everyone else disappears. Whatever you care to say about him, and there’s plenty of it, he had more charisma and magnetism than I’ve ever seen in my life. If you’ve seen ”Higher and Higher,” his previous film, it’s interesting to note how much more assured and comfortable in this. No one has ever changed so drastically from year to year in a 70-year career as Sinatra. In 1944 Anne Jeffreys chases the boyish innocent around the room. In 1954 the same man chased Ava Gardner around the world. Ah, well.
As for Mr.Sinatra’s acting…did anyone ACT in these things? He doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands, but his natural sincerity and shy sweetness are disarming and convincing. You can see the fringes of an Academy Award showing, if you look very hard. His songs, it goes without saying, are without a flaw performance-wise. It’s hard to imagine anyone – other than the jealous bobbysoxer’s-boyfriends – who could dislike him in ”Step Lively.” The whole movie would be hard to dislike; the hey-kids-let’s-put-on-a-show plot is enjoyable, and it whirls by with so many machine-gun-gags and such frantically chaotic insanity it can’t help but be wonderful. The rocking chair may be reduced to sawdust and the shawl slip to the fire to burn to a ”Rosebud” nothingness, but ”Step Lively” and Frank Sinatra are like Ol’ Man River – they just keep rollin’ along.
Gordon Miller (George Murphy) has a hit in the works, especially since he latched onto a playwright whose real talent is his singing voice. Now all that flimflamming Miller must do is put his musical revue on stage before the rubber check underwriting it bounces his troupe from Broadway to the Bowery. As the typewriter-toting crooner, Frank Sinatra steps into his first top billing in this antic backstage musical based on the Broadway/Marx Brothers movie hit Room Service. With a nimble cast (including Gloria DeHaven, Adolphe Menjou and Walter Slezak) and buoyant Sammy Cahn/Jule Styne songs to go with farce, footlights and Frank, what else can a movie do but Step Lively?
Step Lively Specifications
Step Lively is based on the hit Broadway farce Room Service, which had already served as a Marx Brothers vehicle by the time it got this 1944 re-do. The breathless plot is about a theater producer trying to close a deal while staying ahead of some hand-wringing hotel managers, who would understandably like to be paid for putting up his entourage while rehearsals are in session. A variety of songs and dances are crammed into this labored structure, some of delivered in the sweet youthful tones of Frank Sinatra (as a playwright who also happens to sing like an angel). The impresario is played by George Murphy, a light-footed dancer at his most obnoxious here (he was a future U.S. Senator from California), and the impatient hotel managers are Adolphe Menjou and a deadpan Walter Slezak. The songs are by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, and Sinatra gets to croon “As Long as There’s Music,” but by the time the show-stoppers from the stage musical take over, the movie has gone way, way over the top. The early look at skinny Frankie is worth it, but you have to have a high tolerance for noise to endure the rest. –Robert Horton
